Free The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel by Elle Newmark Page A

accompanied by demonic screeches.
    The chef yelled, “Madre de Dio!” and again leapt from his bed and came to the door.
    “Amato,” called Signora Ferrero. “Don’t go out there. You’ll get scratched.”
    Another slipper sailed out and he yelled, “Get out of here, spawn of Satan!” Then he slammed the balcony doors shut.
    With a whine and a whimper, one cat slumped in a matted heap. It appeared dead, and the other cat arched its back and yowled its triumph. But no, the defeated cat rose again. Back from the dead, it leapt from the balcony and disappeared into the night. The victor curled up to groom its paws while its hackles settled.
    I had pressed against the railing so hard that my ribs ached, and now, with the balcony doors closed, I could not hear what the chef told his wife. There was only a weighted silence until I heard Signora Ferrero’s muffled exclamation, “Madonna mia!”
    I stole another peek into the bedroom and saw Signora Ferrero clasped in her husband’s arms, weeping.

CHAPTER VII
T HE B OOK OF V ISITATIONS
    M y maestro seldom talked about himself. He had a reputation for being secretive and somewhat odd. People noticed curious things about him—small things by themselves, but together they made Chef Ferrero as enigmatic as the Hindu incense merchant in the Rialto, only half-visible behind his screen of scented smoke.
    When the chef chatted with the cooks, he managed to combine friendliness with a restraint that went slightly beyond professional distance. When he worked, he was the consummate artiste , silent and serious, examining his culinary creations with a sophisticated palate and a discerning eye. When he prepared his personal recipes, the special ones he didn’t share, his obsession with privacy was so complete that the cooks grumbled about the tall hat making some people self-important. Even the paternal pats he gave me felt covert, and he always walked away before I could respond.
    He didn’t react to things the way most people did. When the doge disinterred St. Mark’s bones in his search for the book, the kitchen staff, along with the rest of Venice, exploded with indignation, but the chef made no comment. I asked him whether he thought the act was sacrilege, and his answer was strangely irreverent.He said, “St. Mark’s bones aren’t his legacy, they’re just bones. Reminders of things to think about, but just bones.”
    He also had the annoying habit of beginning a provocative sentence and then breaking off without finishing, and it was always about some odd new idea or outlandish theory. Once, while watching Enrico build up a fire in the brick oven, the chef said, “You know, there are some who believe there’s a way to harness the power of lightning … but never mind that now. Temper the fire, eh?”
    People alleged that the chef could prepare meals to influence people’s behavior (which was true), and rumors circulated about his improbable garden. He cultivated exotic plants no one had ever seen or heard of, and he knew how to use them in some of his most elegantly nuanced dishes. He grew love apples rumored to be poisonous, knobby root vegetables, and serpentine vines with green pods dangling like claws. No one knew where he got his seeds or cuttings. The cooks always said a prayer and crossed themselves before they harvested the diabolical plants.
    One of the most peculiar things about the chef was the people who visited him. One time, a well-known historian from Padua came to the kitchen carrying a clutch of folios, and he sat with the chef in hushed conference for an hour. Later, the chef said the folios were a rare collection of Far Eastern recipes compiled by a cook who had accompanied Marco Polo on his journeys. The explanation was accepted with nods of disinterest born of having seen too many such visitors over the years. Only later did I wonder how a simple cook in the thirteenth century might have learned to read and write, or how an insignificant thing